Custom Fields

Warning: this is an advanced module, intended for web developers. You need to
have some expertise in HTML, CSS, JS, Smarty and PHP.

Introduction

Custom Fields module

The Custom Fields module lets you customize and create those very field types that
you see in your forms: textboxes, textareas, etc. This is an incredibly
powerful module. In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves: "Whoaahhh".

The Custom Fields module is special. It was designed alongside version 2.1.0 of the
Form Tools Core to provide a new level of flexibility in the field types and what
options are available to configure them. Rather than distributing this functionality
with the main release, we decided that it would lead to a lot of confusion and
people potentially breaking their installations. So instead, the Custom Fields module
is released separately, only for people who need that advanced functionality.

In Form Tools 2.0.x, there was a hardcoded list of available field types. These
were all the common fields types that you've seen in any web form: textboxes, password
fields, textareas, radio buttons, checkboxes, dropdowns, multi-select dropdowns,
file upload fields and a TinyMCE WYSIWYG field. Although these field types covered
most typical needs, it was inconsistently implements (e.g. the date picker could
only be used by the Core's Submission Date field), and couldn't be easily changed.
With the up and coming HTML5 field types (dates, colour pickers, sliders and so on),
we decided to devote 2.1.x to restructuring the Core to be flexible in how those field
types are displayed, saved, processed and managed. The end result was the Custom
Fields module.

What can it do for you?

This module lets you do any of the following:

Create totally new field types for use in Form Tools.

Modify existing field types, including adding new configurable settings to existing ones.

Allocated database storage for the fields

Control every character that is used in displaying and editing the field type.